Booking sequences

Adding a booking sequence

How you add a booking sequence will depend on the nature of the booking - whether it's an internal booking linked to an event sequence in your Calendar module or an unlinked, external booking in your Bookings module. In this article, we'll follow a worked example, adding the booking and then adding the booked resources for the booking.

1. Adding a booking sequence for a linked Calendar module event sequence

When adding a booking for a Calendar module event sequence - for example, a multi-date discipleship course - you can easily add the linked booking sequence to match the event sequence dates. Working within the Calendar module, and from an event "View" page, select Add booking:

The Add booking pop-up opens with the event sequence dates pre-populated into the form.

Complete the other booking details - including the required booking Type - and click Save to create the linked booking sequence; after which you'll be prompted to add the booked resources for the sequence booking (see the related article on Adding bookings for further information on adding booked resources to bookings).

Next, select one or more resources - remember to tick Add to sequence to add the selected resources to the other event sequence dates. Any resource clashes detected are surfaced in the pop-up. Click Save to complete the process.

The Sequence tab lists all future bookings in the newly added sequence; to view the entire sequence, click View sequence.

You can navigate between the booking and the linked event by clicking on the Event link shown on the booking Details tab:

2. Adding a multi-date booking sequence (not linked to a Calendar module event sequence)

While internal event sequence bookings are more easily added from the Calendar module (see the previous section), one-off and sequence bookings for external customers are best added from within the Bookings module itself - either from the resource Planner or the Bookings section of the module. Click Add booking...

Select booking is Not linked to an event.

Enter the booking Name and the Start and End date and time of the first booking in the sequence. Use the Repeat and Until options to generate the other booking sequence dates. Note that generated dates can be optionally removed - perhaps where a sequence only happens during term time - and you can Add date to create ad hoc sequences that don't follow a repeat pattern.

Complete the remaining booking details - the booking Status, Site, and Customer, and select the booking Type (required) and whether online payment is enabled for the booking. You can also add responses to the booking-type-specific questions. Note also the option to Show on the calendar if you wish Calendar module Users to see the booking on their event calendar. This is helpful for those who may not have Planner access, but who still need to know an external booking is happening alongside the organisation's internal events. This option is only available for bookings Not linked to an event; your organisation's internal events are always shown on the Calendar module's calendar. Click Save.

Next, choose the resources to be assigned to the booking. Booked resource times default to the booking times, but note the option to change the resource times - perhaps to factor in setup/setdown time before or after the booking times. Remember to tick Add to sequence to add the booked resources to the other sequence dates. Click Save.

The booking sequence is added. Working with booking sequences in this way is helpful when changes need to be made - changes can be optionally applied to other dates in the sequence without needing to edit each booking. The Sequence tab lists all the other future bookings in the sequence. From here you can View sequence - perhaps to make changes to the entire booking sequence - or Add to sequence if you wish to add additional dates to the existing sequence.

Editing a booking sequence - booking details

It's important to distinguish between the booking details and the booked resources that are assigned to the booking. In this section, we look at how to make changes to a sequence booking's details, and in the next section, we look at how to make changes to a sequence booking's booked resources. When making date or time changes to a booking, care should be taken to ensure the booked resource dates and times are also updated, to avoid mismatches. Remember, the Planner shows booked resource times (which may include additional setup and setdown time), not booking times.

You can make changes to individual bookings within a sequence using the Edit action for a booking. However, you can also make changes to multiple selected bookings within a sequence from the Sequence tab using the Edit action on the batch Actions menu.

The batch Edit pop-up indicates how many selected bookings will be updated. Tick each booking field you wish to edit and enter/select the updated value to be applied to the selected bookings. Click Save to apply the changes.

Editing a booking sequence - booked resources

In the previous section, we looked at making changes to the booking details for a sequence. In this section, we look at how to make changes to the booked resources for a booking or booking sequence. When making date or time changes to a booking, care should be taken to ensure the booked resource dates and times are also updated, to avoid mismatches. Remember, the Planner shows booked resource times (which may include additional setup and setdown time), not booking times.

Working from the Details tab, and for each booked resource listed, select Edit from the resource Actions. Note that it's not possible to bulk change multiple selected resources of a booking and apply the changes to the sequence; you can only edit and apply sequence changes to one booked resource at a time.

On the Edit resource pop-up, make the appropriate changes and tick Update sequence to apply the changes to other dates within the sequence. Click Save to apply the changes. Repeat for each booked sequence resource.

Note that you can make changes to multiple selected booked resources using the batch Edit actions - for example, to change the booked resource times. Note that these batch actions only update the individual booking being viewed - As explained in the previous section, it's not possible to apply batch Edit actions for booked resources to other sequence dates - changes to sequence resources can only be made one resource at a time.

On the batch Edit resources pop-up make resource date/time edits as appropriate and Save the changes.

Adding dates to an existing booking sequence

You can add additional dates to an existing sequence. Working from the Sequence tab of an existing sequence booking, click Add to sequence.

If the booking is not linked to a Calendar module event...

The Add to sequence pop-up opens with all the existing booking details pre-populated into the pop-up fields. Edit the Start and End dates and times as appropriate for the date being added. Note that you can use the Repeat and/or Add date options to add a sequence of bookings to an existing sequence. Update the other booking details as appropriate and click Save to add the additional date/s to the sequence.

If the booking is being linked to a Calendar module event...

Before adding a booking to a sequence already linked to a Calendar module event sequence, be sure to first add the additional event date/s to the event sequence. See our related 'Working with Multi-date Event Sequences' support article. Having added the additional event sequence dates, you can now add the linked booking.

In the example below we are adding bookings for additional event dates that have already been added in the Calendar module; we can now add the additional sequence dates to the booking. On the Add to sequence pop-up, select booking is Linked to an event and search/select the event name, being careful to select one of the newly-added sequence event dates - only events that do not already have linked bookings are shown in the results. In this example, ChurchSuite detected two event sequence dates that had no linked booking. Review the other booking details and click Save to complete the process.

The additional sequence dates are added to the existing booking sequence. Finally, add resources for the new sequence dates - remember to tick Add to sequence to assign the resources to other sequence dates.

Deleting bookings in a sequence

You can delete an individual booking without affecting the other bookings in the sequence. Viewing the booking you wish to delete click More and select Delete. Deleting a booking does not delete any linked Calendar module event.

You can also delete bookings from the Bookings section of the module - perhaps using the Search or Advanced Search to find a particular booking. Then select Delete from the bookings Actions.

And finally, working within the Sequence tab of a sequence booking you can select and delete multiple bookings using the batch Delete action. Note that the list shows Future bookings by default but you can optionally switch to view All or Past bookings if you wish to bulk delete other bookings in the sequence.